Executive leaves NV Energy for Apple

A top clean-energy executive at NV Energy has left the company and reportedly joined Apple.

Bobby Hollis, former vice president of renewable energy and origination at Nevada’s main electric utility, is now senior renewable energy manager at the powerhouse Silicon Valley consumer-electronics maker, according to his LinkedIn page.

NV Energy spokeswoman Jennifer Schuricht confirmed that Hollis left the utility, but she would not provide any other details.

Apple, based in Cupertino, Calif., laid out plans last summer to build a 137-acre solar plant to power its data-center east of Reno.

The company did not respond to requests for comment.

Hollis’ departure, previously reported by tech news sites, comes as NV Energy moves ahead with plans to close, in phases, its coal-fired Reid Gardner Generating Station near Moapa, northeast of Las Vegas, and replace the 800 megawatts of power it generated with cleaner sources of energy.

State Senate Bill 123, which Gov. Brian Sandoval signed into law last June, requires NV Energy to close three coal-plant units at Reid Gardner by the end of this year, and to shutter the fourth and final unit by the end of 2017.

Las Vegas-based NV Energy submitted plans today to the state Public Utilities Commission to develop 200 megawatts of solar energy on Moapa Paiutes’ land and 15 megawatts at Nellis Air Force Base, and to buy 496 megawatts of existing gas plants in Southern Nevada, according to the Sierra Club.

The power company, which billionaire Warren Buffett’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. bought last year for $5.6 billion cash, also will seek permission to build a solar facility next to its gas-fueled Harry Allen Generating Station north of Las Vegas, the Sierra Club said.